Off-Cycle Election: IReV Has Come To Stay, We’ll Effectively Use It For Saturday’s Election – Bayelsa REC Says

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC for Bayelsa State, Obo Effanga, has assured residents of Bayelsa State that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC will make use of the IReV for the off-cycle election in Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo.

Giving this assurance while speaking with Arise TV journalist, Rufai Oseni, the REC assured that Nigerians will be informed if a technical glitch occurs.

“INEC has used the IReV for all the elections from 2020 till date. We are going to use the IRev in this election, and I have assured people on this over and over again; we’ve told people that IReV has come to stay, and we will use the IReV for this election for those who might not understand what this means it is a portal where pictures of the polling unit results are uploaded to on election day,” Effanga said.

His comment comes after the disappointing run of the election umpire at the general election earlier in 2023 as regards electronic transmission of results.

Naija News recalls that the election umpire had, in the build-up to the 2023 general election, assured Nigerians that the result would be transmitted from polling units on election day. However, during the presidential election, the commission failed to transmit the election results electronically as promised, blaming a technical glitch for the failure.

Political analyst suggests that the INEC’s failure to electronically transmit results in the general election might result in voter apathy in subsequent elections.